


The cold earth slept below

by NotManTheLessButNatureMore



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Strike gets a bit chilly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2020-12-14 14:02:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21016952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotManTheLessButNatureMore/pseuds/NotManTheLessButNatureMore
Summary: For lack of a better summary - Strike gets into a spot of bother.Title taken from the PB Shelley poem of the same name. It's gothic and creepy (two things this story is not) so check it out if you're embracing your halloween vibes.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Firstly, I just gotta say absolute lols at the title because I wanted to shoehorn Shelley or Byron into the title so bad and that poem has like one (1) word in common with the story but I was like "connection made!" 😂😂
> 
> Secondly, I'm breaking my own rule here and posting a fic I haven't finished writing yet *the greek chorus enter stage left and boo and side eye me* BUT I do know where it's going and it's not going to be a long one, maybe just 2 or 3 chapters. So it should be fine (famous last words). Also breaking my rule of writing multi-chapter stuff after the last monstrosity 😂 Self discipline? I don't know her 😎

It was hot, that much he knew. The heat was wrapped around him in one warm embrace and the humidity was making his chest ache. A memory came to mind of a morning run in the Afghan desert surrounded by other soldiers doing laps within the army base. The memory warped and when he looked sideways Robin was in a summer dress and someone was waving at him from the water’s edge, but no that wasn’t right.

He only noticed the silence when the banging began.

“Strike?”

A blast of something cold and then hands on him, shaking him.

“Strike!”

“Cormoran?” A softer voice and the heat melted away.

* * *

_Three Hours Earlier_

Robin dropped the stack of papers onto the floor with a huff. She had been sitting cross legged in front of her desk all day sifting through old case files and separating them into piles labeled ‘shred’, ‘keep’ and ‘ask Strike’. They were days away from leaving Denmark Street and still had a tonne of packing to do. Admittedly she had become sidetracked by reading through cases that were from before her time with the agency. Strike’s meticulously detailed notes had made her laugh as she read through report after report of cheating husbands and wives from the agency’s early days and imagined his frustration with such straightforward cases.

The next pile to look through was the nutter drawer, which Robin had been putting off. There were the amusing ones that Robin enjoyed teasing Strike about, women and sometimes men describing in very specific detail what they wanted him to ‘investigate’, but there were also the worrying ones that threatened revenge against Strike and the agency. Increasingly there were ones addressed solely to Robin that she knew were locked away in Strike’s desk, ones which he wouldn’t discuss or part with.

Many of the letters and printed emails had scribbled notes attached by Strike outlining the sender’s details and whether or not they were connected to cases and some even had photographs attached that Strike had either lifted from Facebook or taken himself. In keeping with the theme of the older cases Robin found a large amount of old letters ranting about broken marriages. As she was throwing aside a letter with fairly flowery language but not much substance a photograph fell into her lap, having become unattached from an envelope at the bottom of the pile in her hand.

The man in the picture was bald, tall and well built and had been frozen mid-stride crossing the street by Strike’s camera. There was something familiar about him but not quite right and Robin’s brows furrowed as her thoughts trundled back to a meeting she had early that morning.

“Him?!”

* * *

Strike pulled his phone from his coat pocket as it buzzed. It was a text from Robin, “Got him!”, followed by the address of an industrial estate near Canning Town tube station. He instantly dialled her number but there was no answer.

“Robin? I’ll meet you at the tube station, yeah? Don’t go looking for him alone, okay? Call me back.” Strike said, leaving the message on her voicemail with a frustrated grunt knowing she was most likely already on her way to confront their suspect alone. He quickened his pace to get across the road, passing the Old Vic and limping across the centre of the junction just as the pedestrian lights turned red and the traffic began to move off again.

Strike entered Waterloo station, passing the busy McDonalds on one side and the smell of Cornish pasties that were an insult to the name on the other. Heheaded for the escalator all the while cursing how much of a winding walk it was to the Jubilee line platform but knowing that a cab to Canning Town would take even longer in the wet London traffic.

A train arrived just as he made it to the platform and the trip took all of fifteen minutes but to Strike it felt like an age when he left the station and saw no sign of Robin.

_Shit!_

Strike keyed the address Robin had text him into Google Maps and set off with phone in hand in the direction of the industrial estate, taking only a few minutes to arrive there at a pace that made his leg protest. He called Robin again but there was no answer and then debated calling Wardle but decided to wait. There was no guarantee that their suspect would even be there, perhaps he’d arrive to find Robin snooping around the industrial unit and he could give her another lecture about personal safety and her effect on his stress levels.

It was a grim looking building, even by industrial estate standards and Strike felt a slice of fear begin to churn in his stomach. It looked abandoned, a window on the floor above was broken and a pile of rotten wood was thrown to the side of the entrance. The front door was open, the bottom part twisted slightly as though someone had taken a crowbar to it long ago. Strike pushed it open and found the small industrial unit to be an enclosed one and not a large open space he had expected. He looked down the narrow corridor that led to a series of doors.

“Robin?” He called gently in deference to awakening some hidden junkie or a litter of mice.

There was no reply and Strike wondered briefly if maybe Robin was still back at the office, if maybe all his lectures had actually been taken on board and now he was the fool running off into the unknown with no backup and no one that knew where he was.

The building was somehow colder than the dreary October day that Strike had left outside and as he neared the door at the bottom of the corridor he felt a tingle of electricity run up his spine. Looking around Strike neither heard nor saw anyone nearby as he came to stand in front of the first thick black door and nudged it with his boot. It was old and battered looking and slid open slightly with one kick but Strike frowned at how thick and heavy the door seemed.

A blast of cold air hit Strike followed quickly by a plank of wood.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonjour! 
> 
> A quick explanation: this story is now probably longer than 3 chapters, more like 4 (probably), and that's because I wrote the following chapter in a rush last night and I didn't get as much written as I wanted to but I thought I'd post it anyway because I'm not sure how much writing I'll get done this week. Hopefully another chapter but I can't promise anything but I also might end up speed writing the whole thing in a burst of energy, WHO KNOWS!? But I do know where we're going and how we get there, it just needs to move from my brain to the page (or laptop).
> 
> Apologies for any plot holes (I think there might be some? I dunno?) and I'm not totally happy with this chapter so apologies for that too. And apologies for any spelling mistakes etc. ALL THE APOLOGIES, lol. Oh and remember the whole 'Three Hours Earlier' thing from chapter one? Time is an illusion! I have no idea if it'll end up feeling like three hours or not. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

“Wardle?” Robin asked. Shouting had erupted as soon as the phone call was answered.

“Yeah? Who’s this?” Wardle asked, not having checked the number that had been on the screen and now barely able to hear the voice.

“It’s Robin.”

“Hold on.” He replied.

Robin waited a few seconds and then heard the slamming of a car door and silence.

“Sorry, another fucking protest this weekend.”

“That’s alright.” Robin said quickly before continuing, “Wardle, I think I need your help.”

“You think?”

“Yes.”

“Explain.” Wardle replied in a clipped tone as he massage his forehead with his free hand. He was an hour away from clocking off after too long of a shift.

“Strike is missing and a man from the-“

“What do you mean Gooner's gone missing?”

“He’s missing, I think-“

“Why would he be missing, what’s he-“

“Wardle, stop interrupting and let me explain!”

“Right, sorry.” Wardle replied, glad Robin couldn’t see the smirk on his face.

“One of the psychos from the nutter drawer turned up at the office this morning-“

“Are you alright?” Wardle asked as he caught Vanessa’s eye and motioned for her to get into the car. He’d had a quick glance through the aforementioned ‘nutter drawer’ one evening after a few beers in the office with Strike.

“I’m fine. I didn’t realise at the time who it was. I’ve been sorting through stuff in the office all day and his photograph fell out and... Wardle, I think he took my phone. I went to call Strike and realised it was gone, I think he took it from the desk while he was here. And now Strike isn’t answering-”

“Alright, where are you now? Are you still at the office?” Vanessa had gotten into the car and now started the engine, knowing from Wardle’s expression and tone that they were needed somewhere.

“Yes, I’ve been trying to call Strike but he’s not picking up.”

“Look, his phone might just be dead-“ Wardle said even as he mouthed ‘_Denmark Street_’ to Vanessa and she began trying to traverse the crowd that had spilled out onto the street in front of them with their various banners and Union Jacks.

“No, it rings but no one picks up.”

“Where is he supposed to be?”

“Doing surveillance on a suspect, but from a distance and he wouldn’t ignore my calls, we were supposed to talk about moving stuff.”

“Alright, and what did the nutter talk about this morning? Did he mention Strike?”

“He was talking vaguely about something he wanted me to look into but then he asked where Strike was there. I told him he was out working on a case and then he seemed to lose interest. As if it was really Strike he was looking for.”

“Alright, keep calling. We’ll be at the office in a few minutes.”

* * *

“Fuck!” Strike shouted as his hands slipped from the door handle and he stumbled backwards with a wince.

He had woken fifteen minutes ago, slowly and then with a sudden jerk as blood streamed into his eye and he remembered where he was. He had been left flat on his back in the middle of the room he was now doing his best to escape from. The pulsing headache he had, the pull of cuts scattered across his forehead and cheek and the locked door were not his most pressing concerns however, it was the temperature of the room.

It was an old freezer room, a few hooks scattered on the floor in the corner and an old shuddering unit hanging from the ceiling that whirred as cold, foggy air seemed to fall from above. Strike looked across the room and imagined dead cows, or perhaps criminals that owed a debt, hanging from the rails overhead before turning and grabbing the door handle once more and pulling. If he was honest it was more to channel his frustration than in any belief that it would give way but he had no other options. After searching the room he found no escape routes, just his phone and Robin’s in the corner, both without any signal. He had pulled up Robin’s messages, her unlock code having automatically implanted itself in his head after seeing her enter it so many times, and found that since just after 9:30am the only activity on her part had been the address she’d sent him. There was a missed call from Ilsa at 9:52am but Strike had spoken to Robin around 10am, having called the office phone, knowing she would be at her desk sorting through paperwork. Thoughts passed slowly through Strike’s muddled brain but he began to suspect, and hope, that it wasn’t Robin who had text him the address. It was easier to imagine Robin safely drowning in paperwork than to imagine her in the same state as he was, or worse, nearby.

Strike began kicking and pulling on the door again. The door into the freezer room opened inwards so he had little chance of being able to break it open with a kick or his shoulder and from the inside he could now tell that the weight of the door was due to it being metal.

“You fucking b-bollocks.” Strike said, grunting each word with a heave of the handle.

He blew out a breath and leaned over feeling a stronger tremor run through him. He had already begun shivering shortly after waking, his body temperature having dropped as he lay unconscious and now he was doing an uncoordinated lap of the room in between escape attempts to try and slow the freezer’s effects. There was only so much he could do though, dressed only in a shirt, trousers and his coat, and he could feel the fuzziness of a concussion being joined by a different kind of fog as his back and stomach muscles spasmed and his extremities continued to shake. With one more frustrated grunt Strike kicked the bottom corner of the door angrily.

There was a bang, but not the bang of a metal door.

Strike stepped back with a look of confusion before kneeling down, trying and failing to ignore the cold that instantly seeped through his trousers and into his knee. He banged a fist against the corner of the door and was again rewarded with the sound of wood rather than metal. It seemed that the door was a wooden one, albeit a thick one, but was reinforced with a metal covering. The bottom corner of the metal had given way at some point in the past and the wood below was splintering with age.

“Bingo.” Strike whispered to himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So he's in a freezer! Bit random! This basically came about because last week we had the first proper cold day in the flat and it turns into a freezer in the winter. Good old Victorian buildings!
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonjour! Happy Friday (or happy whenever you read this)! 
> 
> Apologies for not updating sooner but RL was A LOT™ these past two weeks and I don't know what planet I was on when I thought I was going to write a whole story last week ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ Anyway, enjoy, thanks for reading, sorry for mistakes/plot holes etc etc. :)

_Robin was watching him, her hands wrapped around a steaming cup of tea and a frown on her face. They were in a room he didn’t recognise, white walls and a large door behind her. The roaring and crackling sound of a fire drew his attention sideways and when he looked the white walls had given way to those of a small village pub. A memory appeared in his mind of him sitting on a dark worn leather couch waiting for uncle Ted to return from the bar, his legs swinging below, the taste of cheese and onions crisps on his lips and a full bag of jellies on the table in front of him._

_He looked back and Robin was sitting in front of him. She smiled, eyes wide and expectant, as though waiting for him to make his move but suddenly Ilsa appeared beside him, taking his empty pint glass and replacing it with a full one as she plonked down beside him. She wore the black shirt and money belt that had been her uniform in the local pub during their teen years. This is wrong, he thought._

_“What’s wrong?” Robin’s voice caught his attention and when he turned he saw she was offering him her half full packet of crisps. He blinked and everything was pulled away from him in a sickening blur, everything except Robin. She was now sitting across from him in a quiet restaurant wearing the green dress with her golden hair cascading around her shoulders and sparkling in the soft light._

_He still felt the heat from the pub fire on his face and hands and on his legs. Both legs._

_“This is wrong.” He whispered and then he was pulled back into the white-walled room as Nick’s voice shouted at him, telling him to wake up._

The clatter of the metal hook hitting the ground shook Cormoran from his daze.

He was defenceless against the freezing temperature and it had now taken hold of him. His thoughts were sluggish and more than once he had found himself paused in his work of chipping away at the bottom corner of the door, where the metal platting had given way to the wood beneath, as though he had forgotten what it was he was meant to be doing.

The freezer room was eerily quiet and the silence seemed to creep up Strike’s spine as he sat hunched over against the door. The floor was like an ice lake underneath him, as if at any minute he would fall through and the cold would consume him.

“C-come... mm’on.” Strike whispered to himself as he reached with numb fingers for the meat hook.

The bottom corner of the door had given way already and as Strike automatically moved to tear at the splintered wood once more he saw his phone on the floor in front of him. The fog in his mind cleared slightly and the plan he had made reappeared. Strike stretched his stiff legs and back and lay down with his head next to the open corner of the door. He waited and listened but no sound came from the corridor outside. Taking a chance, he took his phone and pushed it out through the hole, just far enough so that he could still see the screen and his fingers still had a grip of it. As he watched it the screen seemed clouded and Strike wondered if it was his eyes or the cold air snaking around him and out under the door. A brief tremor ran through him although his shivering had all but subsided now, coming like the gentle ripples of a lake where once it was as intense as the rough ocean waves. The numbness he felt in his stump would have been blessed at any other time.

The signal bars on his phone lit up where they had been absent inside the room and Strike bit his lip as he clumsily dialled Wardle’s mobile number.

* * *

The trip to Denmark Street was a quick one once Wardle and Vanessa got past the protesters and traffic around Westminster. Robin was waiting by her desk with the office phone held to her ear and the door wide open.

“You should have kept that locked.” Wardle chastised as he stood back to let Vanessa pass and then pulled the door shut behind them.

“He still isn’t picking up.” Robin replied, ignoring Wardle’s comment.

“Is that the nutter?” Wardle asked, pointing at the photograph on Robin’s desk.

“Yes. And that’s his original letter.” She explained. There was a generic white envelope beside the photograph and a letter laid out not top.

“How long ago did it come?” Vanessa asked as she took a picture of the man in the photograph with her phone.

“March of last year. His name is Gerry Donovan, Strike had given his business partner evidence that he was transporting illegal goods in the company van.”

“And was he arrested?” Wardle asked with an eyebrow raised. He knew not all of their cases ended up with the police.

“No. His business partner was actually more hurt than anything else. They’d known each other since school. He made him quietly relinquish his share in the business in exchange for not going to the police.” Robin explained.

“And where is Strike meant to be now?” Vanessa asked as Wardle picked up the letter and began reading, his mouth stretching into a smirk at various choices of words.

“Near Waterloo station doing surveillance but god knows where he is now.” Robin replied as she picked up the office phone again to dial Strike’s number.

“Look relax, we don’t even know if...” Wardle’s voice trailed off as he pulled his vibrating phone from his jacket pocket.

“Strike.” He said with a look towards Robin and Vanessa before accepting the call. Robin hurried towards him while Vanessa stayed where she was.

“Gooner?” Wardle said as silence greeted him, “Strike? Are you there?” There was a barely audible shuffle and then Strike’s voice finally reached him.

“W-Wardle?” Strike’s voice immediately sent a rush of adrenaline through Wardle as he looked to Vanessa but she was already sending off a flurry of texts. Wardle put the call on speakerphone and continued.

“Where are you?”

“C-cann… Canning-“

“Canning Town?” Wardle asked.

“Mm.. Isss... Is R-Rob...”

“I’m fine Cormoran, I’m with Wardle. What’s happened? Are you okay?” Robin said, tripping over her words in a bid to discover why Strike sounded so odd.

“Y-you’re alri-“

“Strike? Listen to me, Robin’s fine, alright? But you need to tell me where you are-“

“Canning-“

“I know, Canning Town, but where? Come on you idiot I need an address.” Wardle waited as it took Strike longer to reply.

“I c-can’t rem… it’s a f-fuck... fuckin’ frr-freezer.” Strike said and Robin’s face paled.

“A freezer?” Wardle almost bellowed before bringing his hand up to his forehead and muttering ‘for fuck’s sake’.

“Where is the freezer Cormoran?” Robin asked.

“You s-sent… the add-address, you… but it w-wasn’t…” Strike mumbled some more words but Robin couldn’t make them out and decided to try a new tactic.

“How did you get to Canning Town Cormoran?”

“T-tube.”

“Good. And how far did you walk when you got off the tube?”

Vanessa walked over to them and Robin saw she had Google Maps open on her phone.

“It’s abandoned… j-just a f-fucker with a p-plank of wood.” Strike continued mumbling and Wardle shared a dark look with Robin.

“Abandoned? Is it an industrial estate Strike?” Vanessa said loudly. She showed Robin and Wardle the map on her phone and both saw the obvious outline of an industrial estate with a number of units of varying size.

“Mm…” Strike confirmed and with that all three turned and began rushing down the stairs as Robin pulled the office door shut behind her, not waiting to lock it properly. After listening to him tell Strike that they’d be there soon, she grabbed the phone from Wardle and put it to her ear after taking it off speakerphone.

“Cormoran?”

“Mm?”

A rush of words ran through Robin’s mind but they all sounded too frightening or too sedate. They were already reaching the front door after dashing down the stairs, Wardle ahead and pulling his car keys from his pocket and Vanessa on her mobile giving the address of the industrial estate to someone and asking for paramedics and another police unit.

“We’ll be there soon, okay? And I’ll stay on the phone so just keep talking to me, okay?”

“‘k-kay.”

“Good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Wardle-Robin-Vanessa team are on the case! Strike rescue imminent! 
> 
> CUT TO: me promising another chapter over the weekend even though not a word of it is written yet but stranger things have happened and it is all written in my head with visual storyboarding, soooooo *grins in a hopeful manner*


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sneaks in* Oh look it's totally still the weekend when I'm posting this (like I promised) and not Monday night. Totally. *nervous smile* My excuse is that RL is still kind of A Lot™ and I can't rely on my brain 100% to show up in a functional capacity. Soooo, onwards.....

It was almost pleasant, Strike thought, as he listened to Robin’s words float in and out of his mind. Pleasant, if he forgot about the shuddering in his chest and the way he seemed to be leading the conversation in circles. Robin would answer a question he didn’t remember asking and he would repeat words not knowing where they were supposed to be leading.

“What did Ted say?” She asked, her voice loud and Strike imagined he could feel her words vibrating through the phone and into his fingertips.

_What did uncle Ted say?_

“Cormoran?”

“Mm... he... w-what d-“

“You were telling me about the summer you worked for his friend at the harbour.” Robin prompted him.

_“_The harb-harbour?”

“Yes. And you lost the keys for the sailing club.”

“They wer-weren’t c-cancelled... just l-looked a t-twat.”

“Who looked a twat? Ted?” Robin asked.

_No. _

“Cormoran?”

“N-no. I was a t-twat. Un-uncle Ted n-never sh-shouts.”

He knew by the empty seconds that he had said something that didn’t fit, but his memories were swimming together and coming ashore in the wrong order even as Robin tried valiantly to keep the fog in his mind from overcoming him completely.

“He’d like y-you.”

“Uncle Ted?”

“He’d sh-show you his b-boat. More pr-proud of his b-boat than of m-me.”

Robin laughed briefly and quietly and it was tinged with something else but Cormoran let it wash over him as a tremor ran through one of his legs.

“Oy Gooner? We’re nearly there alright? Give me a better picture of this place, which building are you in?” Wardle’s voice interjected.

Strike had a memory of telling Robin repeatedly about a long corridor as she continued to ask about the exterior of the building he was in.

“Strike?”

“N-near the t-tube-”

“Yeah, we know where you are you twat, but there’s at least five buildings in the industrial estate. Which one are you in?” Wardle pressed.

Memories cascaded down on top of him. He was walking into the building and then leaving the tube station, doing a lap of the freezer and then feeling the first explosions of pain rip through his head as he woke.

“Robin?” Strike asked, his voice sounding barely above a whisper and the phone held tightly in his hand.

“Yes?”

Strike turned his head and looked back into the room. Robin was sitting across from him wearing the green dress with silk pooled around her legs where she sat on the floor.

_You’ll get cold._

She rolled her eyes the way she always did when he voiced concern for her safety or comfort. He smiled and something caught in his throat as he watched Robin come closer and reach a hand out that fell just short of his. She was lit from above and looked like an angel and Strike heard Nick snort from somewhere behind him.

“Cormoran?”

_Yes?_

The room darkened and he realised they were face to face now, shadows danced across her cheeks and lips as though there was a flickering candle nearby, perhaps a whole restaurant of diners who were invisible to him in her presence.

He distantly heard Robin call his name, more urgently than the moment called for and he suddenly realised that as the light in the room dimmed so too were his eyelids falling shut. _Not now_, he thought, _not yet_, as he blinked and watched Robin flicker in and out of view. The ground beneath him no longer felt hard, no longer felt like anything. It could have been the floor of a burnt out house in Cyprus or his own bed. He imagined that it was sand, not the rough and blood-stained sand of Afghanistan but the soft and warm sand of Cornwall as Lucy

drew circles with the tip of a spade and he waited for uncle Ted to return with ice cream.

* * *

“Cormoran?” Robin repeated for what felt like the hundredth time. She saw the look that had passed between Wardle and Vanessa as Strike’s mumbling had ceased to make sense and he’d finally stopped responding.

“Left here.” Vanessa directed Wardle.

They pulled into the industrial estate and Wardle brought the car to a stop in front of the first building. The ambulance and extra police unit hadn’t arrived yet and the silence that met Robin as she stepped out of the car felt somehow claustrophobic in the open space. Her mind kept running away from her, imagining the room Cormoran was trapped in and how he would look, imagining how utterly desolate the world would suddenly turn if they were too late.

Wardle and Vanessa were out of the car as quick as Robin and all three looked around at the five fairly small warehouses that stood in front of them, each as deserted looking as the other and Robin felt her stomach drop as her grip on the silent phone tightened.

“Robin, look we’ll-“ Wardle began.

“I’m coming with you.”

“Robin-“

“I’m coming with you!” She replied fiercely. “It’ll be quicker searching with three of us.”

“Right.” Wardle almost looked apologetic.

The sound of sirens stretched across the London skyline towards them as Robin rushed to the building with a blue door, Vanessa a steady presence at her side. Expecting Wardle to be ushering her out of the way, she looked back just in time to see him take a step towards the building on the other side of the industrial estate and then look back at the two of them.

“A fucker with a plank of wood.” Wardle shouted as he turned and ran towards the opposite building, echoing Strike’s words earlier with a smirk on his face. Robin looked ahead of him and saw a pile of rotten wood outside the door he was metres from.

“Fucking Gooner.” Robin heard him say as she and Vanessa dashed after him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Neeeeaaaaarlly there! One more chapter to go! Thanks for sticking with me this far and for the lovely comments! Agus although I should totally stop making promises about fic updates I may perhaps be suggesting that this will for sure get finished this week sometime. :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ha ha ha, remember that time last week when I said I'd have this finished by the end of the week? Well that was a lie (clearly) but do forgive me because RL is a disaster at the minute but hey! at least it's up now, right?
> 
> It is finished and so am I (it is late and I am very tired) but I hope you enjoy! And as usual apologies for any plot holes, forgotten storylines or typos (my brain is fried, although I did catch at the last minute Wardle asking for a set of Keats, so who know what you might find).
> 
> Once more unto the breach, dear friends! (not the last Shakespeare reference in this fic)
> 
> EDIT: what I forgot to say when I posted it last night is that while I now know some hypothermia first aid (handy) this is most likely NOT medically accurate cause I've never turned into a popsicle myself.

Robin let out a breath as the cold hit her. She was behind Vanessa and Wardle, both looking warily along the corridor for any signs of Strike or anyone else as they inched their way into the building. Robin imagined the cold having leached into the very foundations of the abandoned building and shuddered to think how cold it was inside the freezer room.

“Strike?” Wardle called out with trepidation.

The corridor was dark and eerily quiet. The evenings had steadily been drawing in as winter deepened and the scene before them could almost pass for night, Robin thought.

Vanessa glanced back at Robin just as Wardle suddenly sprang forward and with his movements Robin was able to see past him and to what had caught his attention. A black door lay ahead of them where the corridor narrowed as if drawing them to the room, but what had caught Wardle’s eye was the hand just visible where the bottom corner of the door had been broken away.

“Cormoran!” Robin gasped as she rushed forward, Vanessa doing her utmost to keep Robin between her and any danger as she continued to scan the corridor.

“Strike!” Wardle shouted as he tried the door handle in vain and then dropped to the ground and pulled the phone from him, the green dial screen ticking away the minutes of the call still connected to Wardle’s phone. He gripped Strike’s wrist and cursed when he felt how cold the man was. Folding over to look through the gap in the door, he could just about make out Strike on the other side, the gap being only barely wide enough for Strike’s hand. Wardle again shouted Strike’s name through the door and shook his hand but the only response was a faint twitch of his thumb. Robin had dropped to the floor on the other side of him and was looking expectantly at Wardle who looked away when he caught her eye.

“See if you can find-“ He began as he turned to Vanessa.

“-something to help get this door open, yeah.” She finished his sentence and headed towards the other doors off the corridor.

“Might even be a set of keys around if we’re due a fucking miracle.” Wardle called after her.

He turned back towards Robin and looked down at her once more. She was bent over, her face inches from Strike’s hand which she held in a tight grasp and, although Wardle would never admit to it even in his most drunken of moments, he felt something shift in his chest as she pulled Strike’s hand to rest against her cheek and continued to call his name.

With a silent ‘sorry Gooner’ for the wallop the door would probably give Strike if he managed to kick it open, Wardle threw his weight behind the first kick that he planted flat against the door just above the locked handle. He kicked a second, third and fourth time and gritted his teeth in frustration as the door barely budged even with his full weight behind each kick. On the sixth kick he heard Robin curse and used it as ammunition on the seventh when finally he heard a creak and felt the door shift ever so slightly. As he moved to give it one more kick Vanessa reappeared with a crowbar.

“They were all out of keys then?” He asked as she quickly moved to jam it between the door and the frame just above the lock. Vanessa counted to three and at the exact moment that Wardle’s foot hit the door she threw all of her weight into pushing against the crowbar as the door finally and loudly gave way.

* * *

His slow breaths were all he was aware of now. Robin was gone and he no longer felt the floor beneath him or the cold air ghosting over his skin. The memory of the beach with Lucy and uncle Ted had slowly folded in at the edges to leave him alone in a sea of darkness.

Seconds, minutes, or hours later a weight pressed down on his hand but it felt distant and detached in the same way that something pressing on his prosthetic felt like it was both there and then not. There was a loud sound of banging every few seconds and it echoed and bounced around his head, ricocheting off areas that had fallen asleep. Something tugged at his arm and then something slammed into his side but there wasn’t much pain, just a pressure that was gone as quick as it came. Voices pierced the room and spun around his mind like he was trapped inside a crumbling Tower of Babel.

He jerked as arms snaked under him and then he was moving, as if the tide was dragging him back towards the shore and the warm sand that lay waiting. He felt lightheaded and couldn’t tell whether he was still moving or not until he came to rest against something or someone. He felt hands wrap around him from behind and come to rest across his chest as someone else was moving his legs. His ear prickled as soft words were spoken close by and then they became louder and he realised it was Robin’s voice just beside his ear and her hair that he felt brush the side of his cheek. He wanted her to tell them to stop, whoever was pulling at his clothes and tapping his face.

“Strike?”

Shock rattled through him as his cheek burned from a slap and his head jerked to the side. Robin’s voice was whispering in his ear again but he couldn’t make out the words and when he opened his eyes Wardle was in front of him, his lips moving and his eyes searching Strike’s for recognition. Strike looked down to see a mixture of coats coming together to form a haphazard blanket thrown across his chest and stomach and being tucked in around his sides by Wardle, who was crouched so close that his knee was pressed against Strike’s chest. His legs and arms lay limp and uncovered and appeared like foreign objects to his mind. Robin’s arms tightened around him then and he let his head fall back onto her shoulder as warmth seeped into his back.

There was Robin’s warm body behind him and then something cold and flat, Robin’s soft hand on his cheek and then a cold one on his neck. He could smell the mixture of wool and perfume that always clung to her coat and when he opened his eyes he imagined nothing but green silk.

“Cormoran?” Robin called and he turned his head to see her sitting across from where he lay and he realised he was swaying slightly. When he tried to move his arm he found it trapped and then heard the rustling of a silver foil blanket that instantly pulled him back to a field hospital in the Afghani desert but the memory stuttered and faltered as he remembered that Robin hadn’t been there and the weakness he now felt was of a different kind.

“It’s okay.” Robin reassured him and then a strange man was looming above and pressing a mask over his face.

“Are you back with us Mr Strike?” A welsh accent asked and Strike heard Robin remind the man of Strike’s first name.

“Cormoran, yes. That’s a funny one that.” The man said as the smell of plastic spiralled up Strike’s nose and a blanket was pulled higher up to cover his neck.

“That’s a bird, ‘init?” The man asked as he pressed something into Strike’s ear.

_A Cormorant,_ he thought.

“No, you’re thinking of a Cormorant.” Robin’s voice offered tightly.

“Well that’s a shame, could have had a right avian theme going on with the pair of you. Now look Cormoran, I know I’m making you nice and warm and snuggly but I’d prefer you stay awake a bit longer, see.”

Strike felt someone pinch his earlobe and then felt pressure building up through his elbow where he recognised the pinch of a needle, but the world had muted to a series of soft sounds and a light touch on his forehead as he drifted with the sway of the ambulance.

* * *

Robin pulled a pale blue chair from the corner of the room and sat beside Strike’s bed before letting out a long sigh. They’d left the abandoned warehouse nearly five hours ago, Wardle and Vanessa racing ahead in front with the blue flashing lights of their unmarked car creating a path for the ambulance through London. She hadn’t seen Strike since he was pulled shaking from the ambulance and whisked away by a nurse and the Welsh paramedic. He’d looked awful and now only looked marginally better.

Robin smiled to herself as she imagined Nick cracking jokes about Strike looking like a burrito. He was on his side facing her with blankets piled on top of him and his head just about visible, the nurse had explained that they’d used a recipe of a warming blanket, the emergency foil blanket the paramedics had used and various scratchy and thin hospital blankets. The was a temperature probe attached to his chest somewhere beneath the blankets and it led to a machine to Robin’s left that was flashing red, although the beeping had been turned off, as Strike was still two degrees away from where the doctor wanted him at this stage. Various wires trailed up to the heart monitor above the bed and an IV line that was giving Strike warm saline hung beside it. Robin scooted her chair further up towards the head of the bed as she saw Strike’s eyebrow twitch. He’d received a few stitches at some point for one of the gashes across his forehead and she watched as his eyebrow twitched again and pulled at the gauze pad taped nearby. A tremor ran through Strike as he turned his head slightly and the mask giving him warm oxygen dug into his cheek and nose. Robin stood and moved it slightly to a better position and when she looked back at his eyes they were wide open and staring up at her with a look of vulnerability she hadn’t seen before.

“Hey.” She said softly, her hand coming to rest on his cheek. Robin waited for the fog to begin clearing as Strike looked around the hospital room.

“Are you okay?” He mumbled thickly beneath the oxygen mask.

“Me? I’m not the one who auditioned for the titanic.” Robin smiled as she saw him frown.

“How are you feeling?”

“Tired.” Strike sighed and then pulled a hand up from beneath the blankets in an attempt to remove the oxygen mask. Robin was quicker though and with a warning tut she held the mask firmly over his mouth and nose.

“How did you find me?” Strike asked when she sat back down and leaned her elbows on the bed near his head.

“Do you remember calling Wardle?”

“It’s all a bit fuzzy.” He remembered his head hurting, and shivering violently, and Robin sitting across from him in the green dress.

“Well you called Wardle and I managed to coax enough out of you for Vanessa to find the place on a map.”

“You were with Wardle?” Strike asked with a cough to clear his throat.

“He was already at the office. I had a feeling something was wrong.” She explained.

“A feeling?” Strike said with a quirked eyebrow.

“Yes. I... well I guess I know you too well by now.” Robin said and Strike held her gaze for a moment longer than necessary before looking away.

Robin looked down at the hospital gown that just about peaked out from under the blankets at his neck.

“Are they polka dots?” She asked.

“Squares.” He replied, looking somewhat affronted by the accusation that he was wearing a polka dot nightgown.

“Ah.” She replied with a look of amusement and then sat watching him in silence as he blinked slowly, his eyes still tired looking, just the odd beep and the sound of nurses at work outside intruding upon their small refuge.

Just as Robin went to grab a bottle of water from her bag Strike blinked a few times to clear his vision and then looked down at her lap and along the edge of the bed, as if something was missing.

“What?” Robin asked with a frown.

“Where’s my Mars bar?” He asked softly, the oxygen mask failing to hide his bottom lip which was treacherously close to being stuck out in a pout.

“What Mars bar?”

“You always bring me a Mars bar.” Strike explained slowly with a yawn, referencing the other times he’d ended up in need of medical attention and Robin had bribed or placated him with a bar.

“I’m not a vending machine you know.” Robin said with a laugh of amusement. Strike just sighed and Robin tried to hide her smile at his grumpy expression.

The sound of someone clearing their throat caused Strike to look up and Robin to sit back from where she had placed both arms on the bed.

“The nurse said you could start having hot drinks, so...” Wardle said as he appeared from behind the blue cubicle curtain holding a cup of tea each for Robin and Strike.

Strike pulled himself up with shaky arms as Robin raised the head of the bed and then set about pulling the blankets back up around him. Wardle passed a tea to Strike, who was busy discarding the oxygen mask, and then smirked as Robin arranged the blankets, wires and tubes so Strike was cocooned with just his steaming cup of tea under his chin.

“Didn’t know you cared?” Strike mumbled with a raised eyebrow in Wardle’s direction as he took a sip.

“I don’t, you owe me 2 quid.”

“What about-“ Strike began, his head nodding towards the cup in Robin’s hand.

“I like Robin. Robin doesn’t get herself locked in a freezer like some fucking Jack Frost.”

“It wasn’t my-“

“And now I’ve got a load of paperwork and a nutter to chase down on the one day I thought I might clock off early.”

“Not my fault you chose to be a copper.” Strike muttered.

“That’s Detective Inspector to you, and it’s better than being a squaddie.”

“What’s wrong with being a squaddie?”

“Nothing if you want your leg blown off. What rank did you make anyway? I heard just Sergeant.”

“Just?” Strike said around a mouthful of tea.

Robin loudly cleared her throat and Strike and Wardle both looked to see an expression of exasperation on her face.

“Have you found Donovan?” Robin asked Wardle.

“We’ve got a home address, a squad car is waiting for him.”

“Donovan?” Strike asked.

“Yeah, the guy from the nutter drawer,” Wardle explained with a glance thrown towards Robin, “the guy that tried to kill you. Right?” He asked Strike as he took a step closer to the bed.

“I, I didn’t see him. I just remember turning and then... waking up inside that room.” Strike explained as his mind ticked over but juddered to a halt when he tried to picture the person behind the plank of wood.

“Right, well we’ll talk later. Vanessa went to look for some food so I’ll just...” Wardle gave Strike a nod and Robin a smile and then disappeared around the blue cubicle curtain and out the swinging hospital room door.

Strike was staring into his cup of tea when something caught Robin’s attention. The machine monitoring Strike’s temperature showed an increase of one degree and was now a steady red, rather than the flashing red of earlier.

“Wardle’s tea worked a charm.” Robin said catching Strike’s eye and nodding to the temperature reading.

“Don’t tell him that.” Strike replied tiredly.

“I’m glad you’re alright.” Robin said and then looked at the dark circles under Strike’s eyes, the cuts scattered across his forehead and cheek, and his pale skin made even paler by his dark hair and beard, “Well, relatively alright.”

“Me too.” He sighed and Robin took his tea as his eyes grew heavy. There was a rustling sound and then the bed dipped as Robin returned to leaning on her elbows beside him, but this time she was waving something in front of his face.

“My kingdom for a Mars bar.” Strike said, tiredly resting his head back on the bed and looking at Robin as if she held all the wonders of the world.

“As if I’d let you starve.” Robin grinned and then placed the Mars bar into the hand that emerged from beneath the blankets. He couldn’t stop the smile that spread across his face as Robin tucked the blankets back around his arm and when he saw Robin’s own bright grin he felt the cold truly begin to abate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A cheesy last line, I know. And an in joke I now have with myself about my own fics and Robin always having a Mars bar on hand when Strike gets hurt *shrugs* I don't know.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it and thanks for reading/commenting/kudos-ing/whatever! I appreciate it! 
> 
> There was something else I meant to say but I forgot, oh well. I am tired. I'll go now. Oíche mhaith!


End file.
